Change is made by men willing to take the next step; not those who theorize about the 200th step

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

A Conversation Between Two People About Sharknado

“So, it’s been almost a week. Have you seen it yet? Have you seen Sharknado?”

“Seriously…that’s why you called me?”

“Come on; tell me if you’ve seen it.”

“No, I haven’t. And I don’t plan to.”

“Oh man, come on, you’re killing me. I need to talk about
this. The Tara Reid acting of sorts. The return of Steve Sanders. The science!
Why are you being so anti-fun?”

“I’m not. I just don’t understand why everyone is getting
all worked up over a cheesy SyFy movie.”

“And the pot starts talking down to the kettle. Remember
that one with Debbie Gibson that you wouldn’t stop talking about?”

“First of all, it’s Deborah Gibson now. Secondly, you shut
your mouth. Those were classics. Let’s not forget that in Mega Shark vs. Giant
Octopus, the Shark ate a
plane in mid-air!”

“So you do like that crap.”

“I did.”

“Are you about to go on a hipster rant?”

“No, it’s a post-hipster rant.”

“Fine, proceed.”

“You see, the SyFy movies are stupid and cheesy and
enjoyable. But they are like an extra chicken nugget in your McDonald’s order
or an extra dumpling from New Big Wong. It’s a guilty pleasure. You’re not
supposed to go that crazy for it. Everyone on Twitter sucked the fun out of
Sharknado by being too excited for it, as if they hadn’t seen a cheesy SyFy
movie before. I mean, fuck, they’ve already made movies with sharks eating
planes, what’s new here??”

“You done?”

“No! The entire Internet was overrun last week with snarky
people making snarky jokes about a movie that was clearly made for about 30
dollars in about 30 minutes for some cheap, summer programming. Oh really, Tara
Reid can’t act? Wow, biting commentary. Oh really Jim Cantore, you’ve never
seen a Sharknado, I’m stunned. Oh the special effects suck, I—“

“Ok I get it.”

“You asked for it.”

“I am going to go out on a limb and say I did not ask for
your hipster opinion. Though I have asked you stupid things in the past like
that awful
Jack Swagger video.”

“I don’t know why I indulge you sometimes.”

“You just like getting angry about things.”

“Do not.”

“Sharknado’s ratings – go.”

“Well, yeah, it annoys the crap out of me when people assume
people yapping on Twitter are going to send
ratings through the roof. As if the whole world is on Twitter, thus if
something happens on Twitter, it will show up the next morning in ratings.
Truth is, the vast majority of people in America are not on Twitter at any given
moment. And I never understood why a thousand people making fun of a crappy
movie would get people to watch it. It’s not like the wrestling when people are
like, ‘Yo, Daniel
Bryan is killing it right now’ and I have to see what’s happening. I knew
what was happening with Sharknado and I did not care. God I could not have
cared any less.”

“Why is this making you so angry?”

“Because I wish there was an alternate universe that I got
to watch Sharknado like I watched the Deborah Gibson crap. Just on a whim and
randomly. Like I’m flipping channels on a Sunday afternoon and there it is, a
terrible cheesy movie that will help me forget about the fact that Mark
Sanchez has thrown another interception and the Jets are down 3 scores.”

“Would talking about the Jets making you feel better?”

“…..”

“You made a sound but I couldn’t quite make it out.”

“…..”

“Okay, that sounded like anger, we can move on. Or back to
Sharknado. See I really think you’ve missed the point entirely. It’s fun
watching crap with people. It’s just that instead of watching it with your
buddies, aka me, on the couch over a few beers, you’re watching it with your
online social networks.”

“First off, that sounds horrible. Secondly off, you sound
like Mark Zuckerberg. I don’t want to do things with my online social networks.”

“That’s total bullshit, you tweet about UConn football and
your dislike
for Coach Gramps on a daily basis during September and October. Frankly, by
November you’ve lost your will to care, but that’s the same thing.”

“I think that’s different.”

“How is live tweeting another UConn loss any different than
live tweeting about a shitty SyFy movie? I think you’ve been in DC too long,
have been exposed to hipsters too long and you’ve become one of them. You’ve
become a douche.”

“Ouch.”

“The dude I knew would have jumped headfirst into Sharknado.”

“Pun intended?”

“No, but awesome.”

“See, maybe you should’ve tweeted that out. You would’ve
gotten like 12 retweets.”

“So if Twitter didn’t exist, if you were just home by
yourself on that Thursday night, no access to your social media networks –
would you have watched Sharknado?”

“Possibly.”

“Possibly?”

“Like if I was flipping channels, like with Mega Shark, I would’ve
stopped on it and given it a chance. I would not have planned my evening around
it.”

“So what did you watch instead?”

“Uhhh,”

“Oh God.”

“I mean, yeah, just something on the Internet.”

“Good Lord, you spent the night watching porn didn’t you?”

“No, not that. And please, I wouldn’t tell you that unless I
watched something awesome.”